Surgical lighting systems are used in operating rooms to illuminate a work area (e.g., a surgical site). The surgical lighting systems include one or more lightheads that are typically mounted to a movable support structure (i.e., suspension system) comprised of one or more suspension arms for supporting lightheads and other lighting system accessory devices. Each lighthead includes a plurality of individual light sources (e.g., LED lighting modules or LED lighting pods). A control system (e.g., wall-mounted control system or an operating room integration (ORI) system) provides a means to independently adjust parameter settings (such as intensity, color temperature, focus, pattern size, and task/trim lighting) for each lighthead of the lighting system. A typical control system is comprised of a control unit having an associated user interface.
There are existing prior art lighting systems that have separate control units for controlling each lighthead of the lighting system, and existing prior art lighting systems that have a single master control unit for controlling a plurality of lightheads of a lighting system. In both embodiments, the control unit must be “mapped” to a respective lighthead in order for the operator to intuitively adjust the parameter settings for a particular lighthead. This “mapping” is commonly accomplished by applying adhesive stickers to each suspension arm supporting a lighthead, where each sticker functions as an identifier that correlates to an identifier shown on a user interface. For example, in a lighting system having four (4) lightheads, stickers (labeled with numbers 1-4) are applied to the respective suspension arms supporting the lightheads. The user interface shows a lighthead identifier (e.g., LH 1, LH 2, LH 3 and LH 4) that correlates or “maps” to the sticker numbers associated with the four lightheads. In this manner, a user can readily associate a particular lighthead with an adjustable parameter setting (e.g., light intensity).
Using stickers as indicators to “map” a lighthead to a parameter setting shown on a user interface has several drawbacks, including, but not limited to:                The readability of stickers is sensitive to the physical orientation of the suspension arms and distance from the user interface.        The mounting of stickers to a non-intuitive location on the suspension arm impedes immediate feedback to a user.        The stickers often become detached from suspension arms over time due to strong cleaning chemistries used to clean the suspension arms.        Stickers give the appearance of an inferior quality product.        
If a lighting system does not have indicators associated with the lightheads, then there is no means for a user to readily correlate individual lightheads to lighthead parameter settings shown on the user interface. As a result, an operator needs to experiment by trial-and-error to associate lighthead parameter settings with a particular lighthead of the lighting system, thereby making the task of configuring the lighting system very time consuming.
The present invention provides a lighthead identification system that overcomes these and other drawbacks of the prior art.